Happy Independence Day

We hope you are celebrating our country’s birth with friends and family, unhealthy food and fireworks.

In hopes of adding a little extra patriotic richness to your day, we are sharing some of our founders’ words from the minutes and hours following the ratification of the Declaration of Independence. Despite all of its faults and black marks over two hundred and thirty nine years, this is truly a great country. May we live in such a way that upholds the grand dream of the Pilgrims, the Puritans, our founders and our fathers.

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“Gentlemen, the price on my head has just been doubled.”
-John Hancock, just minutes after voting

“We have this day restored the Sovereign, to Whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in Heaven and from the rising to the setting sun, may His Kingdom come.”
–Samuel Adams, just minutes after voting

“The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.

You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration and support and defend these states. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means. And that posterity will triumph in that day’s transaction, even although we should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not…

It may be the will of Heaven that America will suffer calamities still more wasting, and distress yet more dreadful. If this is to be the case, it will have this good effect at least. It will inspire us with many virtues which we have not, and correct many errors, follies and vices which threaten to disturb, dishonor and destroy us. The furnace of affliction produces refinement, in States as well as individuals…But I must submit all my hopes and fears to an overruling Providence, in which, unfashionable as the faith may be, I firmly believe.”
–John Adams, Letter to his wife Abigail